wow wow wow.
i did nothing today but juggle and watch/learn juggling...haha....on hindsight that sounds like an immense waste of time but it had been such a joy.
was feeling really high and hyper just now but after doing the usual online stuff (emails, forums) i've wound down a bit. let's see if i can capture back the enthusiasm as i recall the awesome things i've seen today.
met up with siyong and sheng hau (he's onto 7 balls!) early today, juggled a little before picking up the lazer vaudeville trio at the hotel. at the beginning it was slightly awkward cos it's just the 3 of us and 3 of them. cindy started working on her 7 balls, sheng hau and i started 5 and siyong and nick were doing 3 ball fanciful tricks. it was really balls galore in the air. it was a beautiful sight, probaly the most balls that the esplanade has and will ever see.
and then robert came down. haha. it was great. he added to the galore-ness by doing 5 and then 7 too. i wasn't even juggling anymore by then, i was like a kid in a toy store, open mouthed at the sight around me. Nick (who found himself one more ball) was doing all the 4 ball tricks which weren't unique but i've never seen live before.
and then they(robert, nick, cindy) started doing some club passing. the tomahawks and slapbacks were nice (siyong and i will work on ours), and then there was the "receiving hand do a self double so that the right hand is free to do a flourish". i'm sure there's a better name for that. cindy did a chin club balance and then "wham!" hit it across as a pass. haha..that was awesome. siyong said he read somewhere that we can bite the club if we can't balance it, but "wham!" and there goes the club and your teeth.
there was also the usual 7 club passing, and interestingly 7 club passing with 3 counts. not sure abt how it works. i think all of them are cross passes, and they start at the same time. 3 count is able to accomodate doubles too. that's something to try.
robert and nick then started passing 9. NINE! man..that's a singapore record surely.
koah fong taped some parts down, hopefully we can analyse the tricks one day.
we also did 4 pple feed (1 feeder/2 counts, 3 feedees/8 counts), the usual W feed, and the stand in one line feed(middle person stands out of line, pass is within the cascade).
cindy also started doing her 4 club tricks (4 club singles is a gd practice trick), and had a run of 5 clubs.
they were pretty amused by my clubs. that's the only downer of the night. Robert was like "these clubs have really short handles" (that's cos i wrapped them myself) and cindy was like "every spin is different!". haha...thought that's really funny, it's uneven cos i wrapped the clubs. she said they were very comfy to catch though (i wrapped the clubs) but "these are good for begginers, they're like the Jugglebug clubs i started with". (JuggleBug clubs suck, and are very cheap, like toys) :(
"so are you gonna get new clubs now?" (siyong)
"nah, if i can work with sucky clubs then i can definitely do good clubs!"
which is true actually. remember those days in badminton training where the coach deliberately gave us sucky shuttlecocks, like really sucky with missing feathers, to do lobbing to train us. i mean, if you an whack cocks without feathers all the way to the end you can definitely whack those new ones, with less strength too. i think part of the reason is he's trying to save on the new ones.
yup, i abide by that logic. these clubs are really weird, haha, i admit, way too light and after i wrap them the handle is heavier than the other end...hahaha. but i love them cos they dun make me tired and sian after juggling for a while, and they are small enough for me to hold and throw 5 clubs. they're are really embarassing to show to jugglers though.
cindy tried min jiang's ultra heavy clubs too and said hers is a hybird of his and mine. hahahah. His are way too heavy and mine are way too light (besides being weird). she uses todd smiths, american for passing and sth smaller for solo. her beanbags are dube peach, very nice but way too big for me i think (it's standard size but my hands are small).
anyway even if with her big beanbags she could do 7 and with my pasar malam clubs she could do 5. so it's not the equipment. a gd juggler(or badminton player) can be enhanced with gd props (racquet, new cocks) but a bad juggler is bad even with the most expensive/best prop in the world. i'll work on my skills first and then get better props.
having said that, when i get my first proper paycheck, i'll reward myself with spanking new proper clubs. hahahaha. oh well. pple aim for big cars and house, i aim for better clubs. juggling clubs not country clubs.
walked cindy and carter back to the hotel. they are a couple! haha. that's sweet. carter is pretty quiet and soft spoken, cindy is really chatty. like she verbalises her thoughts and all so she talks a lot. both of them are really nice though. they've been touring and performing for the last 6 months and when they're "off season" they work on their circus school. it's amazing you know...i'm like a singapore idol auditionee walking with Fantasia.
cindy was IJA champion in the 1980s, said her routine had balls/rings/clubs and she did something silly at the end. IJA is like the world juggling championship, with winners like anthony gatto who holds the record for most numbers juggled (13 i think). the juggling criteria is now 60% technical and 40% showmanship, used to be 50-50, but they changed it when "someone doing club swinging beat anthony gatto". haha.
anyway she's also a writer for JuggleWorld, said she'll send in our photo if she can. they really like the esplanade, haha, said "it was the coolest juggling place they've seen". cos around us there were breakdancers, an inline skater doing figure skating moves, stunt cyclists and other dance groups. the esplanade underpass really has a life of its own, hope no one itchy backside come and crack us down. (oh in the early evening there was even a group doing qigong. they were moving so slowly they look frozen. sheng hau said they could be from falungong, or maybe in a trance. i think maybe they are practising the statue act for busking. haha. alan has competitors.)
went back to the esplanade where nick was still ard. nick was pretty quiet at first, but he warmed up to us after a while. juggling is a universal language after all. he coached us in the 3 in one line passing move and then taught us stealing moves from his show. (steal no. 1: move across into position during the counts, grab the pass with the nearest hand, swing the club up into the passee's open hand. steal no. 2: grab the pass with further hand, immediately flat throw club with other hand).
oh robert's penguin tip: stretch your arm as much as possible, catch the ball low. more hand area that way.
walked nick back to the hotel. he went to the national circus school in montreal (next to cirque du solei) for 3 years after graduation. (yes all of them are university graduates. i'm inclined to think jugglers are mostly not dumb, judging from the demographic of our singapore jugglers. Ben was from oxford uni, and most of the locals are from NUS/NTU. strangely there seems to be an overwhelming number of computer science graduates and engineering grads. wonder if there's a connection somewhere. maybe we're just too stressed/free)
yes back to nick. so after going to the circus school he's been doing gigs professionally. sometimes he tours with Lazer or circuses, sometimes mingling. he said the circuses pay badly, haha...saved abt a thousand over 7 months, but it was enjoyable. He is Mr Fantasia to me.
the circus school costs abt 4k a year, but the downer part is that there are auditions. with 60% on acrobatic skills and 15% on artistic stuff something like that. (oh yes nick has a fantastic acrobatic cigar box routine)
i love these guys, i love their lifestyles, but my skills are pathetic. sigh. robert's not pro but his standard is like wow. where do i stand? skills are not everything no doubt, but it is SOMEthing. i feel so puny next to these gods. and it's so silly thinking abt performing and circuses when i have the abilities of a baby. oh well. someone did beat gatto with club swinging after all...haha...."imagination is more important than knowledge"..thank you mr einstein.
i'll be back at the esplanade tmrw to juggle. hahahaha. my goodness. siyong and i shld just camp there. haven't been sending resumes for a while. darn. it's gonna be an exciting month. WJD is coming, and i have zero routine and zero training schedule.
Nick: "what's WJD? what competition is this?"
Min: "oh it's like singapore IJA championship."
hahaha...what an overstatement. cute way of describing it though. haha.
nick may come again on fri. yay! :o)
it has been a good day. really fun, and i feel so joyous and connected. connected. it's something so strange. is it called rapport? or probably what buddhists believe to be something brought over from the past life. i'm definitely connected to my old pals, it's like they bring the life out of me, they make me think funny and be funny. they make me alive. but connectedness is not abt how long i've known them, some pple i dun know well but can instantly click with them. some pple i've known for some time and i can't connect. it's like i'll be thinking of what to say, and usually i can't so i just keep silent, or if i can it'd be some superficial crappy thing. i'm really boring and sian when i'm not connected, and i'd rather be alone.
never really felt connected in my 4 years at nus. on the whole/average i mean, haha, in case i offend all my uni friends. yup, i dun hate nus life but it never brought the life out of me. maybe cos i was too stressed. but even when i'm not i could never relate to my course mates, we're on diff wavelengths (they're not nerdy, some are really happening and funny but regardless i can't connect with them). it's strange.
it's impt i think to find a job and partner that makes us feel connected. that brings the best out of us and we feel a deep inner sense of peace/joy too. it may never materialise who knows? it's scary but hey i spent 4 years of my life being disconnected already, i can, and probably will, spent a lot more years being disconnected before getting mid life crisis. issues issues.
on to more serious world threatening issues.
singapore idol.
if you caught the news on mon you would think world peace depends on who the SPI judges are. it's a big load of shit channel 5. they hyped it so much...on NEWS?? they trying to make that News 5 Tonight episode into a blockbuster rating program? it's like every 10 min they'll go "we'll review who the judges are, after the break". oh wait that sounds like ryan seacrest. ah.
worse still, when the judges are finally revealed, 3 of the 4 have been correctly predicted by the Newpaper a few days ago? does channel 5 know how to spell A-N-T-I-C-L-I-M-A-X?
but i did stay tuned, so i'm the sucker in the end.
i dun think singapore idol will work or last long. look at what happened in the previous talentime, what happened to CHerry chocolate candy or any other contestant?? CCC now called CCCrush. yes they've been CCC-CRUSHED alright. i think CCC is quite good actually, saw them perform at the countdown. they can dance well and sound not bad, comparable with ang moh groups. they look quite alright too. but they had to sing covers, cos whose gonna waste time writing orignals for them?
anyway i'm saying even though the contestants may be good, the local market is too small and even then our locals dun give a damn abt locals. American Idol works cos the winners really get FAME, indoneasia/maalaysia idol may work cos the market is huge and locals support locals cos no one cool sings in malay from the west.
so given that the Singapore Idol gets shit in the end, who will want to queue for days and then get hantam by the judges on tv? no one good will do it cos it's not worth it, only the desparates will do it cos they're desparate. sounds familiar? yup, it's the singing version of Miss Singapore!
so i predict singapore idol will fade off after maybe, 2 seasons, when everyone will realise the winner gets squat so dun waste time. and the quality drops so viewers also won't waste time. somemore Mediacorp Channel 5 is handling it, habis man. i was highly irritated with ryan seacrest's after the break but the suspense was good enough for me to be glued. in channel 5 they will hype so much you wanna give them one tight slap and switch off.
the one thing they've done right is to make the prize a proper recording contract with an established company and not MEDIACORP STUDIOS. that one sure end up CCCrushed.
quote of the day:
"i'm not sure if my job is actually useful but it sure is fun."
~Jimmy the Juggler
i did nothing today but juggle and watch/learn juggling...haha....on hindsight that sounds like an immense waste of time but it had been such a joy.
was feeling really high and hyper just now but after doing the usual online stuff (emails, forums) i've wound down a bit. let's see if i can capture back the enthusiasm as i recall the awesome things i've seen today.
met up with siyong and sheng hau (he's onto 7 balls!) early today, juggled a little before picking up the lazer vaudeville trio at the hotel. at the beginning it was slightly awkward cos it's just the 3 of us and 3 of them. cindy started working on her 7 balls, sheng hau and i started 5 and siyong and nick were doing 3 ball fanciful tricks. it was really balls galore in the air. it was a beautiful sight, probaly the most balls that the esplanade has and will ever see.
and then robert came down. haha. it was great. he added to the galore-ness by doing 5 and then 7 too. i wasn't even juggling anymore by then, i was like a kid in a toy store, open mouthed at the sight around me. Nick (who found himself one more ball) was doing all the 4 ball tricks which weren't unique but i've never seen live before.
and then they(robert, nick, cindy) started doing some club passing. the tomahawks and slapbacks were nice (siyong and i will work on ours), and then there was the "receiving hand do a self double so that the right hand is free to do a flourish". i'm sure there's a better name for that. cindy did a chin club balance and then "wham!" hit it across as a pass. haha..that was awesome. siyong said he read somewhere that we can bite the club if we can't balance it, but "wham!" and there goes the club and your teeth.
there was also the usual 7 club passing, and interestingly 7 club passing with 3 counts. not sure abt how it works. i think all of them are cross passes, and they start at the same time. 3 count is able to accomodate doubles too. that's something to try.
robert and nick then started passing 9. NINE! man..that's a singapore record surely.
koah fong taped some parts down, hopefully we can analyse the tricks one day.
we also did 4 pple feed (1 feeder/2 counts, 3 feedees/8 counts), the usual W feed, and the stand in one line feed(middle person stands out of line, pass is within the cascade).
cindy also started doing her 4 club tricks (4 club singles is a gd practice trick), and had a run of 5 clubs.
they were pretty amused by my clubs. that's the only downer of the night. Robert was like "these clubs have really short handles" (that's cos i wrapped them myself) and cindy was like "every spin is different!". haha...thought that's really funny, it's uneven cos i wrapped the clubs. she said they were very comfy to catch though (i wrapped the clubs) but "these are good for begginers, they're like the Jugglebug clubs i started with". (JuggleBug clubs suck, and are very cheap, like toys) :(
"so are you gonna get new clubs now?" (siyong)
"nah, if i can work with sucky clubs then i can definitely do good clubs!"
which is true actually. remember those days in badminton training where the coach deliberately gave us sucky shuttlecocks, like really sucky with missing feathers, to do lobbing to train us. i mean, if you an whack cocks without feathers all the way to the end you can definitely whack those new ones, with less strength too. i think part of the reason is he's trying to save on the new ones.
yup, i abide by that logic. these clubs are really weird, haha, i admit, way too light and after i wrap them the handle is heavier than the other end...hahaha. but i love them cos they dun make me tired and sian after juggling for a while, and they are small enough for me to hold and throw 5 clubs. they're are really embarassing to show to jugglers though.
cindy tried min jiang's ultra heavy clubs too and said hers is a hybird of his and mine. hahahah. His are way too heavy and mine are way too light (besides being weird). she uses todd smiths, american for passing and sth smaller for solo. her beanbags are dube peach, very nice but way too big for me i think (it's standard size but my hands are small).
anyway even if with her big beanbags she could do 7 and with my pasar malam clubs she could do 5. so it's not the equipment. a gd juggler(or badminton player) can be enhanced with gd props (racquet, new cocks) but a bad juggler is bad even with the most expensive/best prop in the world. i'll work on my skills first and then get better props.
having said that, when i get my first proper paycheck, i'll reward myself with spanking new proper clubs. hahahaha. oh well. pple aim for big cars and house, i aim for better clubs. juggling clubs not country clubs.
walked cindy and carter back to the hotel. they are a couple! haha. that's sweet. carter is pretty quiet and soft spoken, cindy is really chatty. like she verbalises her thoughts and all so she talks a lot. both of them are really nice though. they've been touring and performing for the last 6 months and when they're "off season" they work on their circus school. it's amazing you know...i'm like a singapore idol auditionee walking with Fantasia.
cindy was IJA champion in the 1980s, said her routine had balls/rings/clubs and she did something silly at the end. IJA is like the world juggling championship, with winners like anthony gatto who holds the record for most numbers juggled (13 i think). the juggling criteria is now 60% technical and 40% showmanship, used to be 50-50, but they changed it when "someone doing club swinging beat anthony gatto". haha.
anyway she's also a writer for JuggleWorld, said she'll send in our photo if she can. they really like the esplanade, haha, said "it was the coolest juggling place they've seen". cos around us there were breakdancers, an inline skater doing figure skating moves, stunt cyclists and other dance groups. the esplanade underpass really has a life of its own, hope no one itchy backside come and crack us down. (oh in the early evening there was even a group doing qigong. they were moving so slowly they look frozen. sheng hau said they could be from falungong, or maybe in a trance. i think maybe they are practising the statue act for busking. haha. alan has competitors.)
went back to the esplanade where nick was still ard. nick was pretty quiet at first, but he warmed up to us after a while. juggling is a universal language after all. he coached us in the 3 in one line passing move and then taught us stealing moves from his show. (steal no. 1: move across into position during the counts, grab the pass with the nearest hand, swing the club up into the passee's open hand. steal no. 2: grab the pass with further hand, immediately flat throw club with other hand).
oh robert's penguin tip: stretch your arm as much as possible, catch the ball low. more hand area that way.
walked nick back to the hotel. he went to the national circus school in montreal (next to cirque du solei) for 3 years after graduation. (yes all of them are university graduates. i'm inclined to think jugglers are mostly not dumb, judging from the demographic of our singapore jugglers. Ben was from oxford uni, and most of the locals are from NUS/NTU. strangely there seems to be an overwhelming number of computer science graduates and engineering grads. wonder if there's a connection somewhere. maybe we're just too stressed/free)
yes back to nick. so after going to the circus school he's been doing gigs professionally. sometimes he tours with Lazer or circuses, sometimes mingling. he said the circuses pay badly, haha...saved abt a thousand over 7 months, but it was enjoyable. He is Mr Fantasia to me.
the circus school costs abt 4k a year, but the downer part is that there are auditions. with 60% on acrobatic skills and 15% on artistic stuff something like that. (oh yes nick has a fantastic acrobatic cigar box routine)
i love these guys, i love their lifestyles, but my skills are pathetic. sigh. robert's not pro but his standard is like wow. where do i stand? skills are not everything no doubt, but it is SOMEthing. i feel so puny next to these gods. and it's so silly thinking abt performing and circuses when i have the abilities of a baby. oh well. someone did beat gatto with club swinging after all...haha...."imagination is more important than knowledge"..thank you mr einstein.
i'll be back at the esplanade tmrw to juggle. hahahaha. my goodness. siyong and i shld just camp there. haven't been sending resumes for a while. darn. it's gonna be an exciting month. WJD is coming, and i have zero routine and zero training schedule.
Nick: "what's WJD? what competition is this?"
Min: "oh it's like singapore IJA championship."
hahaha...what an overstatement. cute way of describing it though. haha.
nick may come again on fri. yay! :o)
it has been a good day. really fun, and i feel so joyous and connected. connected. it's something so strange. is it called rapport? or probably what buddhists believe to be something brought over from the past life. i'm definitely connected to my old pals, it's like they bring the life out of me, they make me think funny and be funny. they make me alive. but connectedness is not abt how long i've known them, some pple i dun know well but can instantly click with them. some pple i've known for some time and i can't connect. it's like i'll be thinking of what to say, and usually i can't so i just keep silent, or if i can it'd be some superficial crappy thing. i'm really boring and sian when i'm not connected, and i'd rather be alone.
never really felt connected in my 4 years at nus. on the whole/average i mean, haha, in case i offend all my uni friends. yup, i dun hate nus life but it never brought the life out of me. maybe cos i was too stressed. but even when i'm not i could never relate to my course mates, we're on diff wavelengths (they're not nerdy, some are really happening and funny but regardless i can't connect with them). it's strange.
it's impt i think to find a job and partner that makes us feel connected. that brings the best out of us and we feel a deep inner sense of peace/joy too. it may never materialise who knows? it's scary but hey i spent 4 years of my life being disconnected already, i can, and probably will, spent a lot more years being disconnected before getting mid life crisis. issues issues.
on to more serious world threatening issues.
singapore idol.
if you caught the news on mon you would think world peace depends on who the SPI judges are. it's a big load of shit channel 5. they hyped it so much...on NEWS?? they trying to make that News 5 Tonight episode into a blockbuster rating program? it's like every 10 min they'll go "we'll review who the judges are, after the break". oh wait that sounds like ryan seacrest. ah.
worse still, when the judges are finally revealed, 3 of the 4 have been correctly predicted by the Newpaper a few days ago? does channel 5 know how to spell A-N-T-I-C-L-I-M-A-X?
but i did stay tuned, so i'm the sucker in the end.
i dun think singapore idol will work or last long. look at what happened in the previous talentime, what happened to CHerry chocolate candy or any other contestant?? CCC now called CCCrush. yes they've been CCC-CRUSHED alright. i think CCC is quite good actually, saw them perform at the countdown. they can dance well and sound not bad, comparable with ang moh groups. they look quite alright too. but they had to sing covers, cos whose gonna waste time writing orignals for them?
anyway i'm saying even though the contestants may be good, the local market is too small and even then our locals dun give a damn abt locals. American Idol works cos the winners really get FAME, indoneasia/maalaysia idol may work cos the market is huge and locals support locals cos no one cool sings in malay from the west.
so given that the Singapore Idol gets shit in the end, who will want to queue for days and then get hantam by the judges on tv? no one good will do it cos it's not worth it, only the desparates will do it cos they're desparate. sounds familiar? yup, it's the singing version of Miss Singapore!
so i predict singapore idol will fade off after maybe, 2 seasons, when everyone will realise the winner gets squat so dun waste time. and the quality drops so viewers also won't waste time. somemore Mediacorp Channel 5 is handling it, habis man. i was highly irritated with ryan seacrest's after the break but the suspense was good enough for me to be glued. in channel 5 they will hype so much you wanna give them one tight slap and switch off.
the one thing they've done right is to make the prize a proper recording contract with an established company and not MEDIACORP STUDIOS. that one sure end up CCCrushed.
quote of the day:
"i'm not sure if my job is actually useful but it sure is fun."
~Jimmy the Juggler
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